Tonight we did our first meeting of the Eugene Zendo small group. We
got about 16 people. I started with Yunmen's The Whole World is
Medicine koan. I was able to work it out within our existing
structure. We have a service first and then we sit for 40 minutes.
After we were settled, I spoke the koan into the room and then
presented some questions to consider based on John's questions with
slight modification. I said a few things suggesting how to keep
company with a koan then repeated it again. I repeated it once more
not too long before the sitting period ended. It was funny after this
last repeating that it got amazingly still. After that we left the
meditation hall and went outside to the less formal yurt where we
usually hold classes and other events.
In the yurt we sat in a circle and went around and did names as we
often do. After that I did one circle game just to get people relaxed
and present and then we made a start. I really wanted to hear from
everyone and suspected that people would be shy, this is so new to
most of them, so I decided to have them pass around an object in turn,
actually it was one of those plastic animated california raisins with
the white gloves and I didn't notice until the teacher, Ejo, pointed
it out that it had one hand pointing to the sky and the other to the
ground so a very fitting object indeed.
For the first go around I just asked people, if they were willing, to
talk about their experience and everyone participated. Some people
talked about realizing that they were medicine. One person admitted to
her reluctance about doing this. One person had never sat anywhere
before in her life and had some really good insight into how the
sickness and medicine are not different and immediately talked about
her love for her daughter as her cure. I've never seen the guy who sat
next to me before and he talked about crying over the koan and having
been a medic in the past so seemed to bring up a lot for him.
Interestingly a guy who has not been around, probably for a few years,
a musician, came tonight. We did publish an intriguing announcement
about this in the newsletter and, perhaps, that got him to come back.
He actually asked if I would bring a verse to go with the koan next
time. My first thought is that that's not a good idea. I suspect that
keeping it simple and focused will probably make this more accessible
but I'm open to suggestions if anyone has a different idea. I decided
to go last as I didn't want to set any particular tone for how this
would all go and wanted it to find its own level.
Our format allows for another hour and 1/2 after sitting so we had
time to go around again and, this time, I suggested that people talk
about the "what am I?" part. One person talked about his AA experience
and how his transformation is a healing in the world (my words, not
his). One person was frustrated about thinking that she can't use her
head to figure this out. Then people asked me a little to say more
about koans so I read a few more things from John's piece and said a
little about my experience. I encouraged people to keep working with
the koan throughout the week and we will talk about it a little when
we meet next week before we move on to the next one.
Everyone got listened to. That was great!
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